Abstract

Freshwater environments in New Zealand provide a range of ecosystem services and contain important biodiversity. Managing these environments effectively requires a comprehensive inventory of the resource and cost-effective tools for regular monitoring. The complex and extensive margins of natural water bodies make them difficult to sample comprehensively. Problems thus occur with extrapolating point-specific sampling to accurately represent the diversity of vegetation in large freshwater bodies. Mapping freshwater vegetation using satellite remote sensing can overcome problems associated with access, scale and distribution, but it requires high-resolution images that have appropriate spectral characteristics. This paper provides an overview of the optical satellite data characteristics required for mapping riparian, submerged and emergent vegetation associated with freshwater environments in New Zealand.